Perchance to dream - anything you like with the fantasy machine

Entering an exam hall totally unprepared or walking the streets naked may soon become nightmares of the past. A Japanese toymaker, which has already brought us cats and dogs that "talk" said yesterday it had developed a gadget enabling people to turn fanciful daydreams into realistic night-time experiences.

Before hitting the futon, all the owners of Yumemi Kobo, or Dream Workshop, have to do is stare at a photograph of what they would like to dream about and then record, in their own words, how the dream is supposed to pan out.

Once users are in the land of nod, the gadget goes to work, combining the voice recording, lights, music and aromas to stimulate sleepers whenever it detects rapid eye movement - a sign that someone is dreaming - and directs their dreams accordingly.

Eight hours later, users are gently awakened by soft lighting and music to ensure that pleasant memories of the night before are not instantly erased.

But Takara, the company which plans to start distributing the gadget in the spring, warns it cannot guarantee complete customer satisfaction.

"Some said the theme was right, but the storyline was wrong. And some said the noise woke them up. But it has worked for quite a number of people."

At 14,800 yen (£75), the dream machine is not cheap, but then what price the holiday of a lifetime, dinner with the ideal man or woman, or your team winning the World Cup?

As well as conventional toys such as action figures, dolls and miniature cars - Takara, Japan's second-biggest toymaker - is behind several bizarre gadgets which it calls "life toys".

They include Bowlingual, a device that apparently can translate the barks, whines and yelps of more than 80 breeds of dog into human language, and Meowlingual, which performs a similar service for cat lovers. Time magazine voted Bowlingual one of the best inventions of 2002.

The Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, presented a pair of English-language Bowlingual gadgets to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, during anniversary celebrations in St Petersburg in May.